


Waist to Floor

by luldemort



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Slash, also harry's pants are magical, handjob, harry doesn't mind, how does one tag, liam's hands have a mind of their own, yeah idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-05 00:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luldemort/pseuds/luldemort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not like Liam sets out to touch Harry all the time; it's just his hands sometimes reach out and touch without his permission and Harry is often the one on the receiving end of said touches. That's how it begins, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waist to Floor

It starts out innocently enough – about as innocent as anything involving Harry can be, which is to say, not that innocent at all – and Liam never really notices he’s doing it until Harry mewls like a kitty cat and nuzzles up to him, leaving Liam to retract his hand from wherever it has wandered to this time and mumble a quick apology. He doesn’t _mind_ touching Harry (of course he doesn’t, anyone would love to touch Harry and feel the smooth planes of his shoulder blades, or the sharp line of his collarbones and the hollow of his throat), it’s the being caught aspect of it that bothers him. If he knew he was doing it (which he doesn’t), he would be able to play it off as a speck of dirt or a piece of lint he’s simply brushing away, or he wouldn’t do it at all, but since he never notices, he’s left blushing and apologizing sheepishly whenever Harry leans into the touch. 

It starts right after X-Factor, and they’re at Harry’s bungalow. They’ve got the place all to themselves and two cases of beer for everyone except Liam to enjoy, but he doesn’t mind. His band-mates are excellent company, drunk or otherwise, and Liam much prefers being sober anyway, if only it means he’s the only one to keep at least some articles of clothing on during the whole ordeal. He’s seen his friends naked more times than he’d like to count, and while their nudity doesn’t bother him, he’s not exactly up for strutting about in his birthday suit. 

Harry appears to be quite the opposite. Every chance he gets, he’ll shed himself of his clothes and flaunt what his mama gave him, and this occasion is no different. They’re all in the pool, and each of them except Harry is adorned in swimming trunks. No one seems to mind Harry’s nudity though, each of them long ago having accepted it as something that just is. Harry being naked at any opportune moment is like Zayn having brown eyes and Niall having the mouth of a sailor – it just is, and nothing can be done about it.

And yeah, Liam’s seen Harry naked dozens of times, seen near every inch of him enough that if he were a good artist, he could sketch him just from memory, but this time, something is different. He can’t pinpoint what exactly, though if he had to guess, he’d say the water. The way Harry’s skin looks when wet, it’s…enticing. He glistens in the sun beating down on them, and the knobs of his spine protrude enough to throw shadows over his back. Liam, only a foot behind him sitting at the edge of the pool, warming up in the sun while Harry volleys a ball back and forth to Niall, chases the line of his spine with his eyes, down to the small of his back and his bum, distorted in the rippling water but Liam still feels strange looking at it and is quick to avert his eyes back to Harry's spine. He wants to feel those knobs beneath his fingertips, wants to feel Harry’s spinal column brushing against his knuckles, and count each individual notch, commit its shape and feel to memory. The thought comes to him without warning, and he can't quite explain why he wants to do it, just that he does. 

In a way it's not fair, because he doesn't even realize he is touching Harry's back, running his knuckles over the spinal column just like he wanted to, until Harry makes a sound that, for all intents and purposes, is a cross between a squeak and a moan, and melts against Liam's hand. Liam's quick to retract his wandering arm, shocked at both himself and Harry's reaction (and in that way it's not fair, he didn't even get the time to enjoy it), and he can feel himself blushing madly as he mumbles, “Oh, uh, sorry mate.” He hadn't even given himself time to think of an excuse (no “brushing away a fly, the little buggers” or “I wanted to be a spinal surgeon before X-Factor, I swear, I was just admiring your spine from a medical standpoint”) and the look Harry gives him has him threading his eyebrows together over his eyes while a chill runs down his own spine. He'll blame that on the sudden breeze and the fact that he's wet, it has nothing to do with Harry's positively sinful gaze because everything to Harry is sinful and Liam cannot handle what he imagines his friend might be thinking at the moment. 

That's why he leaps to his feet and shakes the water out of his hair, much like a dog, Louis points out with a laugh. Everyone except Harry joins in on the chuckles and Liam halfheartedly jokes back as he wraps himself in a towel and begins to retreat indoors to catch a shower before all the other boys are fighting for it. One last glance back proves that it was Harry's gaze he felt on his back, not just his imagination, and the water must really be distorting the lower half of his friend's body, because for a moment (Liam doesn't look for any longer than that), it looks like Harry might be sporting an erection.

* * *

They were all very comfortable with each other from the beginning, none of them leaving room for discomfort, always making sure they acted like they'd been best friends all their lives because the band wouldn't work if every time they were with each other, they shuffled their feet and chatted about the weather. So, discomfort was never an option nor was it ever a problem, but it does take a bit of time until they reach the level of brotherhood. Until Liam can let Louis cuddle him when he's got in a fight with Eleanor, and Niall can learn to share his doughnuts with the rest of them no matter how much it pains him, and Harry can admit to being bisexual, and Zayn can open up to them, really open up to them with no holds barred, nothing held back. Soon, it feels like they've known each other for more than just this mere lifetime, but for every lifetime they've ever experienced, as if in every separate universe in which they existed, they always found their way to each other. 

What Liam means is that he no longer apologizes when he's caught touching Harry, just shrugs it off and removes his hand when it wanders without his permission. He never notices it half the time anyway, Harry is just so touchable and open and Liam prefers to read him through the calluses of his fingertips. Harry never minds because _of course he doesn't, he's Harry_ and they all touch each other sometimes anyway; never in a sexual way, but in the way that sometimes Niall finds his fingers threaded through Louis's hair and Liam finds his hand squeezing Harry's hip. It's like Harry's nudity, Zayn's brown eyes, and Niall's potty mouth – _it is what it is_. And it can't be changed. 

If Liam comes to realize he touches Harry more than the others, well, that's okay too. He'll place all blame on the youngest band member for being so open to any and all touches that are thrown his way, never brushing Liam's hands away even when he'll sometimes brush the others away. Liam isn't sure what that means. 

So, sometimes he'll give Harry these quick neck massages or ruffle his hair, only to stop when Harry grunts, moans, groans, or lets out any one of the thousand other noises he's capable of making whenever a set of hands are on him. He won't apologize, though, because he doesn't need to. His hands have a natural affinity towards Harry's body and Harry doesn't mind because, well, he's Harry.

What Liam notices one day is that Harry has, like, really nice hands. Long fingers that are thin yet also strong and steady, protruding veins that spiderweb down into his wrists. The kind of hands that were meant to sculpt things, get splattered with clay and paint, or flit over keys of a piano, playing masterfully a tune Liam probably wouldn't even hear anyway because he'd be too focused on the way Harry's hands would move. It's not fair because Harry has these really nice hands and nothing to do with them; he dabbles with the drum and the guitar but not much and hands like that should be conducting symphonies or at the very least, winning a game of Operation. 

They're about five minutes from going out on stage and the dull roar of a hundred thousand screaming teenage girls buzzes through Liam's head as he buttons his shirt. He's always a bit of a nervous wreck right before showtime, his throats feels a bit constricted and his head a bit dizzy, so he tries to focus on evening his breathing and buttoning his shirt at the same time. A task that quickly proves to be impossible as his breathing becomes labored again and his fingers shake too much to get this shirt on properly, and dammit, he thinks he's forgetting the lyrics to all their songs now, too. 

Harry, as if he has a Liam radar that lets him know when his mate's about two seconds from a mental breakdown, shuffles over to him and extends those really nice hands. “Here, let me-” and he plucks Liam's own hands away from the shirt, at which point, they fall gracelessly to his sides. “It's gonna be okay, Li,” he tells him quietly, and his fingers work to finish buttoning the shirt. “You're gonna be great. You always are.” 

Except Liam isn't even really listening anymore, because he's too focused on the way Harry's fingers move across the buttons, straining and flexing and just generally being really nice frickin' hands. 

He can't help it when he touches one of them, and if Harry tenses and pauses what he's doing, Liam doesn't notice. He runs a digit over each individual knuckle, studying them the way one would a historical artifact, mouth set in a line of concentration and eyes pouring over every inch of Harry's hand. It's smooth, but not as smooth as Liam expected it to be. It's a hand that's been places, seen things (not actually seen things, as hands are incapable of sight, but still) – a hand that should be conducting symphonies. 

He grazes a fingernail over the most prominent vein, feeling the way it raises the skin stretched over it, and Harry hisses. Of all the sounds Liam's heard him make before, this is a new one. 

He blinks as if emerging from a daze, and drops his arms back to his sides. “Sorry,” he mumbles, apologizing for the first time in what feels like forever. “Didn't mean to hurt you.” Harry gapes at him, eyes shimmering and cheeks flushed. “Li, you didn't-” he starts, and then Louis is calling, “Alright boys, it's time!” and whatever Harry was going to say is lost in the din around them as Niall grabs hold of Liam and pulls him out on stage just as the music starts up for 'One Thing.' 

The girls scream so loud Liam worries for their poor fragile throats and how sore they're going to be by the end of the night, but they always scream and it's something he's still attempting to get used to. What surprises him so much about their screaming is that they're looking at him, pointing and flailing and positively going out of their minds and Liam cannot begin to fathom why until the music dies down before he even gets the chance to sing and Niall chuckles into his microphone.

“Uh, Li,” he says. “You may wanna...button your shirt.” And he chuckles some more, with Louis and Zayn and a couple thousand girls joining in. 

He looks down to be greeted with the sight of his bare chest and the amount of blood that rushes to his head makes him dizzy. He whirls around, to hide both his blush and maintain his dignity, and paws at the buttons. There are more undone than when Harry came over to help him, which could only mean that Harry, the little shit, was _unbuttoning_ his shirt. 

He looks up and Harry, off to the right, toward the back of the stage, shoots him the cheekiest, most suggestive grin Liam thinks he's ever seen in his life. Only Harry can inflect so much sex appeal into a smile. 

The audience goes mad at Harry and his smile and Liam, with his back still turned to them, flips him the bird.

* * *

Liam has to physically restrain himself from touching Harry for a week after that, because no bad deed goes unpunished, but after seven days Harry's practically coaxing him into it, wrapping himself around Liam like an octopus every chance he gets, head slotting into the junction between his neck and his shoulder and whining, “I'm sorry, Li!” 

On another stage in another city in another city in another state, Liam finds his hands threading through Harry's hair, fingernails scraping along his scalp and Harry falters, voice wavering through his part of the song, as Liam brushes his hair back into place. The look he receives for doing so is one of pure bliss. 

_And the crowd goes wild!_  

* * *

They've got a few days off in New York so Danielle and Eleanor fly out for a visit and the seven of them end up in Zayn's hotel room, curled up in various positions around the T.V. and watching some R-rated gross humor comedy that Liam could care less about. Really, it's nice to be with Danielle again, feel her curled up against his side, his hand engulfing her hip, really, truly, it is _nice_. 

But Harry's on his other side, using his shoulder as a pillow and Liam has a hard time keeping his free hand on his own thigh. It's because Harry's thigh is warm and heavy against his own, begging to be touched, if only to further prove the scientific theory Liam has forming about Harry's vast collection of jeans – mainly, that they're magical. Everyone has a bit of thigh fat and therefore everyone's thighs should spread when they sit down because that's what bodies do but of course, Harry has to go and spit in the face of anatomy. 

Namely, his thighs don't spread when he sits. And Liam blames his jeans. They're too _tight_ , Harry's poor legs are probably like encased little sausages, begging for air beneath a layer of constrictive denim. Suffocating sausages are what Harry's legs are! (Except not really, because Liam has seen him naked and Harry's legs are too nice to be compared to breakfast food.) 

It takes Liam a moment to notice that his hand has made its own way to Harry's thigh, ready to test out the theory once and for all, and because it takes him a moment, he doesn’t notice Harry's sharp intake of breath, otherwise he might've backed off. 

Still, as it is, his hand's already there. Might as well prove his hypothesis about the magical Harry Styles jeans collection. 

Not even bothering to pretend to watch the movie anymore, he looks down, briefly catching Harry's helpless gazing at him. His face is a mixture of emotions Liam can't discern but he assumes has something to do with the placement of his hand. Honestly, thigh touches are too intimate and they both know it. The invisible line in their handsy-feely relationship has been breached and Liam should retract his hand and should play it off as a giant accident, like “well look at that, my hand slipped right onto Harry's leg, whoops” but he doesn't. He _can't_. 

He runs his thumb over the inseam of the jeans, feels how tight they're pulling, feels Harry tense up and shift, a minute shift that's barely noticeable, but enough to nudge Liam's hand further up his leg. Liam pays it no mind, all his focus on how strong Harry’s thigh is, how warm and toned, and how _tight_ his ridiculous jeans are.  His thumb swipes over the inseam once more and Harry makes a stifled sound, as if he’s biting his lip to restrain whatever noise it is he involuntarily makes. 

Liam pulls his hand back, the sudden daze that stormed over him dying down, the presence of his girlfriend coming back to him only when Zayn says, “Careful, Liam, the way you touch Harry might be mistaken as sexual,” and Danielle plants a sloppy, rushed kiss to his jaw as if marking her territory. 

“Just testing a theory,” he announces to the several sets of eyes that regard him curiously. His voice is too gruff for his liking and he clears his throat. 

“Oooh, what’s the verdict?” Louis asks, lifting his head from Eleanor’s lap to look up at him. 

“Harry’s pants are definitely magical.” 

Louis laughs, long and brilliant, and proclaims, “I knew it!”

* * *

Danielle breaks it off with him not too long after that, on another visit in another state; in the midst of screams and shouts and pleading and tears, he hears her say something about Harry but he’s too far gone to figure out what exactly it is she says, what comments she makes about his friend who has nothing to do with their breakup, he thinks. He can’t fathom why she’d bring him up in the first place when he’s begging for her just to stay, please, _stay_ , but she leaves, and the scent of her perfume lingers in his clothes. 

Liam isn’t even sure why they break up, but he feels hollow and desolate and a kind of lonely that settles deep into his bones.

None of the boys can cheer him up for a while. Not even Harry.

* * *

It's nearing the end of the tour and Liam is positively exhausted. He misses his home, his mum, his family. He misses his bed, or maybe just any bed, really. They've been holed up in the tour bus for a few days now, driving across America, and the tour bus beds aren't the most accommodating on his back. 

They're at a pit stop now, and all the others except for him have gone for pancakes at a shoddy diner that promises 'Best Coffee in The World.' Liam highly doubts that, but he isn't willing to prove he's right. He's a bit tired, a bit lonely, and a bit craving a good cuddle. Danielle used to be an excellent cuddler, but even if that were an option anymore, she'd still probably be back home and Liam would be stuck in Missouri or Minnesota or wherever he is right now. 

So he stays behind, claiming nausea and he's met with raised eyebrows and narrowed eyes, but no comments – at least they're leaving him be. 

It's only when he finally decides to venture away from his bunk in search of a water bottle that he sees Harry, back turned to him in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts, slumped over a counter and pouring milk into a bowl of cereal. 

“Thought you'd gone with the others,” he says and Harry startles, whipping his head around in search of the voice before he sees Liam and visibly relaxes. 

He shrugs, eyes returning to the half-lidded stare of someone barely awake. “Wanted a bit more sleep. I'd actually thought you'd gone with them.”

Liam shrugs. “Wanted to be alone.” 

Harry nods and turns back to his cereal.

It's been a while since Liam's last touched Harry and there hasn't been any specific reason he's stopped, just that his hands no longer wander. It's as if they've got their fill of Harry, touched all the places they've been allowed to and no longer need to explore. 

(It could also be because Liam's still hung up on Danielle and whatever she said about Harry during their breakup, really, he's still not sure.) 

But Liam's just so _lonely_ , longing for his mum's kiss on his cheek and his sisters' snide yet loving comments, and Harry is the band's resident cuddler. Any one of the boys know when they get a bit down, a bit lonesome, a bit homesick, Harry's there with open arms to hug all their troubles away. Liam's cuddled with him plenty of times, on occasions when he's felt much less alone than this. 

He slinks up behind Harry, slings a single arm around his waist, elbow crooked at his hip so that his hand falls right over Harry's bellybutton, and presses his head into the other boy's shoulder. “Could really use a cuddle right now, Hazza.” 

Harry tenses up, so much so that Liam considers pulling away and apologizing, like back in their post X-Factor days, but he presses more insistently against Harry instead, showing him he means it. He wants Harry to cuddle him, dammit. 

And then one of Harry's hands falls over the one Liam has on his belly and Liam lets out a breath of relief, deflating against Harry. 

Except, Harry doesn't just thread their fingers together and hold them there, no, Liam feels his hand begin to move – lower, lower, lower until they're slipping past the waistband of Harry's underwear. 

Liam's breath hitches. 

“S'ok Li,” Harry says quietly, voice barely above a whisper but still loud, so loud, in Liam's ears. “You can touch me. Please,” he adds, because Liam is frozen, doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to _do_. “I want you to.”

If he thought he'd crossed the threshold when he'd grabbed Harry's thigh, then he's so far beyond the threshold now, fleeing off into the distance of inappropriate touches among friends and struggling to remember if his mum ever talked to him about proper etiquette in a situation where your mate puts your hand on his cock. 

Not knowing what else to do, Liam wraps a hand around him. 

“Finally,” Harry hisses, already half-hard and growing harder by the second, swelling between the loose fist Liam has made around him.

Liam shakes his head against Harry's bare back, remembering that first time he'd touched Harry's spine, how badly he'd wanted to do it, how he'd reached out with knowing... 

Or the time he'd touched Harry's hand, collarbones, head, shoulder blades, _thigh_. Fuck. Was this was what all that had been leading up to? 

“Harry,” he groans, unsure of whether he should jerk Harry off or retract his hand and flee the scene. 

“Please,” Harry tries again, and humps up into his grip, rutting against his sweaty palm. 

Liam moves up and down once – slowly – and Harry moans quietly. The sound is both like and unlike the millions of other sounds he's caused Harry to make before, and it sends a flood of heat into his gut. 

So he moves up and down again, and then again and again until Harry knocks his head back against Liam's and says breathlessly, “I need – do you think you could...” 

“What-” Liam starts, panicking, wondering if Harry's come to his senses after a flash of temporary insanity and is going to be revolted by Liam now. Instead he just grabs the hand Liam has wrapped around him, brings it up to his mouth so he can spit in the palm, and shoves it back into his boxers. 

“Much better,” Harry sighs, and thrusts his hips up to urge Liam on again. 

Liam jerks Harry off the way he knows how, the way he's jerked himself off for years, and the angle is exactly the same (he is standing behind Harry) but the cock is not. Harry's feels different than his own, smaller but not by much, thick and hot and Liam's only just now realizing how hard he himself is. His own erection strains against his sweats and pokes Harry in the back and the whole situation is so surreal, Liam wonders if he's about to wake from an extremely vivid wet dream. 

“You have no idea how long-” Harry grunts then shakes his head and moans brokenly. “ _God_ , Liam. What took you so long?” 

“I-” is all Liam says because he isn't sure how he's supposed to respond, let alone what a proper response would even be and he wants to maintain some sort of etiquette while he's jerking his best mate off. He wonders if maybe they should discuss the weather. 

Harry's moans and groans hit a fever pitch and he's moving with Liam, involuntarily – or perhaps voluntarily, who really knows with Harry – rubbing his ass against Liam's own erection. Liam, who begins to speed up his ministrations and twist his wrist on the upstroke. Liam, who rubs the head with his thumb in a manner that has Harry muttering ' _Fuck fuck fuck_ ' in a wrecked voice. Liam, who resists rutting against Harry until he comes in his pants because _etiquette, dammit!_

Liam jerks Harry off. He imagines that'll be the title of the Sugarscape article should they be caught. Subtitle: steamy tour bus hookup while the others innocently drink the best coffee on earth. 

Liam jerks Harry off, and Harry appreciates every goddamn moment of it. When he comes, he goes still, locks up against Liam and lets out a long, low groan that's pure sex to Liam's ears, that has Liam pushing Harry square up against the counter and rubbing himself against his friend's ass. Fuck etiquette. 

“ _Liam_ ,” Harry says, except 'says' isn't the right word. Harry whispers it, so many countless innuendos and inflections in the tone of it that Liam can't take it anymore, can't with his hand wet from Harry's cum and Harry pushing back against him, coaxing him along. 

This is how it is: Liam helps Harry, and Harry helps Liam. It's how it's always been. 

He comes in his sweats, cock pulsing while he groans and feels what little energy he'd mustered for the sudden hook-up session drain out of him. 

It's quiet except the sound of their loud breathing, for a while. Harry reaches again for Liam's hand, removes it from his boxers for good this time, and sucks the cum off of Liam's fingers. Liam wonders if there's some land-speed record for the amount of time it takes a guy to get hard again after he's just come because if so, he might have won if it weren't for the fact that all his cock did was give a little wiggle of interest, as if to say 'hmmm, we'll have experiment with that one later.' 

He presses a kiss against a knob of Harry's spine, because he knows he can, because he knows Harry will lean into it and without being able to see Harry's face, he knows his friend will be smiling. 

Things click together in Liam's brain, his mind making sense of everything from the beginning – the little touches and Harry's reactions and his breakup with Danielle, it all comes together so that Liam feels a little less lost and a lot less alone. 

“My cereal's gone all soggy,” Harry sighs a bit later, neither of them really knowing how long they've been standing there with Liam's arms around Harry and Harry leaning into him, neither of them really caring, even when the boys return, steps and voices clamoring into the bus as Niall rants angrily about how the coffee was anything but the best. When they see Liam and Harry, they pause and try to piece together what it had taken Liam so long to figure out, what he himself had only just pieced together, and now that he doesn't have to let go of Harry, mind his wandering hands, he's not going to. Still, as it was, the boys just chuckled and congratulated them and wandered off to different parts of the bus so that Liam and Harry could stand alone in the silence for a little while longer.

“You owe me a bowl of Cocoa Puff's,” Harry growls playfully, reaching behind him to pinch Liam's side. 

Liam only laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story on AO3 so wooh!


End file.
